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don f

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Everything posted by don f

  1. Ha, ha. Nope, not water in Texas. Concocted in Hawaii, finished on the mainland. Must have been the result of living on a remote, some say most remote, archipelago on earth.
  2. @AlxBNE I'll check with Doug and see if he can provide a photo showing what he did with model. And it is a big model. I usually work in 1/72. Handling that model required some care on my part. Fortunately for me, filling and sanding involved large surfaces with no concern for preserving surface detail. I did use the better part of a tube of Tamiya white putty, a fair amount of Apoxy Sculpt as well as CA mixed with that pink dental repair resin. Don
  3. This model was intended as a model suitable for long distance viewing, hung from the ceiling. Three model builders worked on the model. Mike provided inspiration, hacked up 1/48 AMT S-3A and Kinetics C-2A kits to produce the shape of the fictitious C-3 "Super COD" . I then took over the project to produce a model primed and ready to paint and finish. The model was then shipped to Doug for final assembly, painting and decaling. The WIP link is below. Here's the finished model. The model did not land in its intended location. So, it will grace Doug's man cave. Hope you enjoy the pictures. This was a fun project.
  4. @Retired Bob My notes have this aircraft struck off charge at NAF China Lake on May 17, 1974. Perhaps this photo is of its last flight. I should have posted my inquiry in Cold War. I'll reshape the kit fin cap. I am trying to limit aftermarket purchases. After taking inventory of my aftermarket collection, I was taken aback by the number of items hiding in the big boxes in the closet, never to used. Thanks for the heads up regarding the Eduard fin cap. Don
  5. Update with many images. Doug received the the model damaged. This required some repairs. Image below shows the repair to the wing and the putty work to fair the wing to fuselage. On to masking and painting: Engines Fuselage The wavy line was not to his liking, so repainted. Decals Done! I'll post the final images Ready for Inspection. Don
  6. In April of 2023, my friend Mike asked me to once again participate in one of his team builds. This proposal became the fourth team build with Mike. First was a 1/72 F-4 project, F-4B, F-4J, F-4N and F-4S, that was actually completed. Second is a still on-going project in 1/72 to build a collection of the USN first aces by aircraft type. Third was this C-3 project that was completed. Fourth is a WIP in-flight Tamiya F-4B. The Super COD project involved three model builders, Mike, myself and Doug. Mike started this project as a kind of jab at the USN for phasing out the C-2 in favor of the Osprey. Doug flew C-2A's with VCR-30. The photos of the build progress are not the best. None of us intended to document the project. So we just took snap shots to pass around. Mike dropped off this model soon after I arrived for extended stay on his home island of Kauai. He said he was sick of looking at the model and asked me to finish the build up to the point of having it primed and ready to hand off to Doug on the mainland. Once again I had only rudimentary modeling tools and supplies. So, I received two boxes with the remains of an AMT 1/48 S-3 and a Kinetics(?) C-2 together with the assembled fuselage, wings and vertical stabilizer. The photos below are poor. But, I thought some here might enjoy seeing the results. For me, a what-if was a pleasant diversion from "serious modelling", freed from the restraints of building a replica of something. Here's the pieces: Fuselage with the S-3 nose grafted to the C-2 fuselage. C-2 wing was cut up and glued together for a swept wing. Fuselage was reinforced and sculpted to accept the modified wing. The photo below shows the wing with flaps that I had installed on the left side. Mike was fond of using red Bondo as a filler. The mount for the horizontal stabilizer had been removed from the rear fuselage. The horizontal stabilizers had been cut to give them a positive dihedral. This required that a new mount. I called this mount for the horizontal stabilizer assembly the canoe. The horizontal stab tested fitted to the canoe. Ribs were made to shape the desired profile of the front and rear of the canoe. After making a good fit with horizontal stab, the forward and aft sections of the canoe were filled with epoxy putty and shaped to fit and match the profile of the ribs. The model had to survive being shipped via the Postal Service. So Mike asked if the wing could be made removable for shipment, as well as easy to reattach by Doug. I added a structure in the fuselage to accept a screw inserted into the wing. Once secured, the opening in the wing could closed with a small plug. Doug could then secure the wing and fair in with putty to finish. Preliminary mock-up after the engines were assembled and mounting points in the wings located and drilled. The beginnings of the MLG sponsons on the lower fuselage can just be seen. These were later filled over and shaped with epoxy putty. After looking at the mock-up, Mike and I decided to omit the middle vertical stabilizer. We thought that it looked better that way. One of the many rounds of filling, sanding, repeat. Oh, joy. Looking kind of like a winter camo job. Primed. And here she is in all of her primed, baggy eyed, corpulent, swept wing, jet propelled glory. I departed. Mike boxed and shipped the model to Doug. Photos of Doug's completion of the model in a day or so. Don
  7. Thank you all for your replies. @e8n2 I noticed the configuration of the radome. This should be easy to incorporate. @petetasker I'll take a look at Johnsen's book when published. I'm trying to keep my library from further expansion. If the book has good info the QF-4's, I'll purchase a copy. @Bozothenutter Thanks for pointing me to Tommy's blog. I had not read the F-4 posts. @Sabrejet Saves me the trouble of building seats. This aircraft was written off at China Lake a long time ago. My effort to build this kit has now been significantly reduced. No landing gear, crew, ejection seats, pylons, missiles or other ordnance to make. The aircraft appears to have slotted stabilators. I have a copy of the preliminary NATOPS for the QF-4B to guide me in making the changes to the cockpit. I'll use the Tamiya kit, that I received as a gift, for the model. Only changes that I see are to the vertical stabilizer cap, radome, cockpit and external antennas. Caracals for the decals and no other aftermarket will be used for this plane on a stick display model. This should be a fun and relatively easy project. Don
  8. My plan is to build an in-flight display model of this QF-4B. The aircraft appears to have the ejection seats removed. When flown NOLO were the QF-4B's routinely operated with one or both seats removed? Thanks! Don
  9. Back to work on this project. The completed model will be displayed banking slightly to the right with the crew looking to the left. Also, I was asked to modify the stock kit crew so that they would be offering a salute, the "Hawaiian Good Luck Sign". Perhaps some remember the Pueblo Incident and the Blue House Raid. "Ride Captain ride, upon your mystery ship...." The crew figures were modified by rotating the heads to the left, changing the positions of the left arms and fingers of the left hands. Pilot RIO Crew primed and ready for painting. Now I get to be a figure painter! I am expecting kudos from the International Plastic Pilots Society (IPPS) for rescuing a pair of their brethren from the doom of the scrap box or worse the waste bin. The kit ejection seats are complete. Little time was spent trying to get colors close to the real seats, whatever paints in bottles at hand were used. With the crew nestled into the seats little of them will be seen. The interior of the fuselage was completed. Leading edge droops attached. I had much difficulty with the cure of the CA used to bond the resin parts to the wing. Perhaps this was the result working in a cold room. Wings and fuselage assembled. Drooped ailerons left off for now to allow for a little putty work. Details of the landing gear so far Many more details to add. Don
  10. Not so rare. Here is a discussion with diagram from the IPC. Whatever may have been the problems with these early finger type exhaust stacks, they were solved as this style of exhaust was standard on the A-26 Invader. Hopefully some one will offer these exhausts in 1/72 and 1/48. Don
  11. Agree that the Monogram kit can be made into nice model without major corrections. I remember one from a convention contest some years ago. A gent entered a beautifully built and finished WWII era A-26C in NMF. He had the model in a case. As I recall, the builder rescribed the Monogram kit with no major corrections. Wish I had kept a photo of it. If I were to make only two easy corrections to the kit, these would be: 1.) For a WWII era model, replace the kit MLG wheels with aftermarket B-25 wheels, or those from a Monogram B-25 kit. 2.) Fix the shape of the vertical stabilizer and rudder to eliminate the "scorpion" tail up tilted appearance of the kit. Leave the rest of the fuselage as is. If you consider the drawing in the image below as reasonably accurate, this comparison shows how the shape if the vertical stabilizer affects the appearance of the kit fuselage. From my long running A-26B project, the correction to the kit: Hopefully, one of these days, I'll return back to this project. Don
  12. You have your work cut out for you bringing the Monogram kit up to speed. These are some images from a 24 Jan 1946 issue of the Dash-1. Close to the content of my copy of a 1944 issue. Don
  13. I presume that you are going to detail the bombardier's compartment. Not much in there but detail helps in the very visible interior of the A-26C. Here's a little help. The rear bulkhead was all armor plate. The first image below shows of the rear bulkhead with the armor plate. The following image shows same with armor plate removed. A small transverse (edit - Changed from longitudinally to side-to-side, transverse) armor plate was installed just forward of the fuselage entry door. To use the bombsight, the bombardier knelt on the floor, on a cushion, and leaned over this armor plate. The .50 cal. MG's were sometimes removed and the openings for the gun muzzles faired over. Anecdotally, I was told that the bombardiers were very unhappy when the pilot discharged the guns next to their heads. Same for the similarly equipped B-25's. I'll post some more images of the nose compartment soon as I can find them. Don
  14. In the B-25C1/D1 strafer aircraft, a gun, or guns were often installed in the rear of the aircraft after removing the observer's dome. Machine guns, .30 caliber, were often installed in the open windows in the side of the aft fuselage. I cannot remember where I obtained the images below. They show one type of installation of the cameras just aft of the crew boarding hatch. Don
  15. Hi Neil, I've got some info, regretfully no dimensional info. According to Allan Blue in his book, "The B-24 Liberator", this type of fuel vent was added by Consolidated (CO) beginning with B-24J-75-CO, or Block 75. Consolidated Fort Worth (CF) did the same during J Block 20. The addition of the post type vent to North American Dallas (NT) B-24G's and J's is not discussed in the book. However, photographs show the vents on B-24G-15-NT. So, perhaps all subsequents had the post type vent. Ford made B-24H's do not seem to have had the post type vent, retaining the B-24D type vents. Fuel vents on Ford B-24J, L and M's likewise are not discussed. Nothing is simple with the B-24. Hopefully someone here with more detailed information will fill in the blanks and make corrections. In the photo below, if you zoom in on the upper wing you will see where these were located on the wing top. Note the vents angled upward to follow the air flow over the wing. The B-24D had the vents on both sides of the fuselage above the wing roots. Air entered via a small ram air scoop. A reverse outlet prevented excess pressure. In the photo below, the scoop and outlet can be seen on the fuselage side aft of the raft door and above the wing root. Not very important in 1/72 but visible in larger scales. Below is an image of the B-24D Strawberry B***ch. The fuel vent is visible just above the wing trailing edge. And here is another view of Kentucky Belle from below. The left side art work was not applied at the time of the photo. The bombardier's scanning window is clearly visible. The national insignia appear to have been grayed out. Don
  16. This may answer your question: http://www.b24bestweb.com/pisces1.htm Hopefully, Airfix has captured the "tacked on" shape of the Ford "S" nose characteristic of the B-24H. Minicraft tried and failed with their B-24M kit. Don
  17. The antenna pictured was likely used in conjunction with the AAF Instrument Approach System. This Antenna Assembly AS-61/ARN-5 was installed when the localizer receiver was not installed in the aircraft. If you are going to make the antenna it was about 10" high and 15" wide. The web search ARN-5 for more. Don
  18. Update for today. The fuselage halves have benn glued together. The leading edge flaps for the outer wing panels were cut out and replaced with the KASL resin flaps. The inner wing section was assembled. Fuselage assembly: Inner wing section with outer wing panels and flaps temporarily attached. The inner wing flaps will require adjustments to obtain a good fit. The resin outer wing wing flaps caused me some difficulty with bonding. CA is not my favorite adhesive. Hopefully, priming will not reveal the need for much clean up or rework. The left side flap has already been broken off and bonded back twice. Fuselage and wing center section temporarily joined to check fit and layout. 1/72 is my preferred scale. This is a very large model even partly assembled. I've not yet become accustomed to handling the model with bumping into edges of my work table, lamps, edge of the paint booth, etc. Not much rework yet. Don
  19. @corsaircorp Thanks CC! Tamiya provides remarkably detailed landing gear. The nose gear was easily modified. After making the modifications shown above, the nose gear strut, part A18, was dry fitted. The strut once fitted to the nose bay box could be rotated freely. This allowed me to figure out how long to make the new extension of the oleo strut such that with the wheels attached, the nose gear fit in the gear bay. After temporarily fixing the gear at 45 degrees, part A19, the retraction strut, was cut to fit. The scissor links, Parts A30 and A31, fit as provided. The layout of the kit made this modification so much easier. The MLG trunnions molded into Part A1 were correctly represented with an offset. The trunnions were cut through, right at the spars, with the thinnest PE saw I own. The struts were dry fitted and rotated with trunnions in the proper locations to make sure they fitted into the bay. The kit MLG geometry is very good. The struts were cut for the guestimated length of the oleos. The modified MLG struts were tube glued in place and reinforced with filled CA. Retraction struts Part A17 were cut to fit. Once again, the kit parts made the modification much less difficult. Great kit. Don
  20. If you use the KSL resin flap sets take care with the instruction pages. They are printed with water soluble ink. The instructions vaguely show the cut out areas for the flaps. Close inspection of the resin flaps in comparison with the kit parts will indicate where the cuts should be made. Leave plenty of excess kit material and test fit as you go. Fortunately, the Tamiya plastic is soft and carves away easily. Lower inner wing with the trailing and leading edge flaps removed. The dark gray KSL resin parts are above and below the corresponding kit parts. Upper inner wing. The KSL trailing edge flaps set provide a well detailed wedge shaped insert to replace the wing root lost when the flaps are removed. Careful cutting and test fitting is required to make this wedge fit the fuselage. Kit wing root KSL insert Next, the outer wing leading edge flaps will be removed and replaced with the KSL parts followed by adjustments to the fit of resin flaps. The hard work almost done. Don
  21. A friend and fellow model builder offered me a Tamiya 1/48 F-4B to build as a joint project. His proposal was to build the kit configured in-flight. He wanted the model delivered to him primed and ready to paint. He would finish the model and install the model on a stand as a display model. Not being one to turn away a challenge, I accepted. And, I would be chopping up his expensive kit to build the Tamiya wonder kit. Another bonus, I could deliberately abandon the kit half done, thus staying in my usual lane. Being a display model, the kit will be assembled with parts from the box. No effort to super detail or add aftermarket parts other than the KSL resin parts. Here's the configuration: - Full crew - Landing gear being retracted - Speed brakes retracted - Flaps at 60° extended - Ailerons drooped - Wing leading edges drooped - Aux air inlets close - Centerline fuel tank - Inboard wing pylons Shortly, the Tamiya kit, along with resin KSL flap sets, K48143 and K48144, were delivered to my home. Here's the progress so far: Aux air doors closed. Nose gear modified to represent the extended strut. The three images below show the preliminary layout with and without torque links. This image shows the MLG about half way retracted. The MLG mounts were cut from the lower wing. The MLG struts were cut and extended with plastic rod. Mock ups of the extended gear shown below. The torque links and shrink strut parts were crudely modified as not much is visible. Landing gear assembled and painted. And, all that I was willing to do with the cockpit. Next up, cutting the wings for the KSL leading and trailing edge flaps. Don
  22. @Tbolt Thanks for pulling all the drawings together and making a copy of the document available for download.
  23. Here's three 1/48 Mickey radomes that I know of. The Paragon items are hard to find. Paragon Set 4850. Paragon 100 Group conversion included the radome. The Belcher Bits set BB-16 is more readily available. The radome is designed for a B-24 but can likely be adapted to a B-17. Don
  24. @Kari Lumppio My opinion about the Revell forward fuselage being too deep was based on a comparison to drawings in the MBI and AJ Press No. 26 monographs on the P-47. This website is also another source of P-47 data http://soyuyo.main.jp/p47rb/p47rb.html That website has this very useful image: Clearly visible are the crash skids and attached structural members with sway braces and suspended shackle that were added when the P-47 was modified for the carriage of a belly tank or ordnance with 14" suspension spacing. Enclosing the new structures caused the belly bump. The shackle was first the B-7 later replaced with the B-10. Here's an interesting document reportedly from Republic that describes the changes. Curiously, the date, revision number are missing. Here's the comparison of the Tamiya and Revell fuselages. The Tamiya fuselage is on top.
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